Zelenskyy refuses to surrender Ukrainian land to Moscow in future peace talks

Ukrainian president Folodimir Zellinski released on Sunday that Kiev will not surrender to Moscow, which pushed back against international speculation about possible land negotiations.

“The Ukraine constitution makes it impossible to give up lands or commercial lands,” Zellinski said at a press conference at the European Commission on Sunday.

European leaders will join

He added that Russia has tried again and again and failed to seize the entire Donbas region in eastern Ukraine for 12 years. Donbas, which includes Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts, is an industrial center, with coal extraction and central steel production of Ukraine’s economy.

“Since the regional issue is very important, it must be discussed only by Ukraine and Russia’s leaders in a trilogy [talks with] Ukraine, the United States, Russia.

The Ukrainian leader, who spoke alongside the Chairman of the European Union Committee, Ursula von der Lin, said that the Kremlin “has not yet given any sign that the trio will happen.”

Putin requires controlling the main Ukrainian lands for peace: European diplomat

“With regard to any regional questions in Ukraine, our position is clear: the international borders cannot be changed by force. These are decisions that Ukraine and Ukraine alone should make, and these decisions cannot be taken without Ukraine on the table,” said von der Line.

Their statements came after the meeting of Russian President Vladimir Putin with US President Donald Trump in Alaska on Friday, when the Russian leader set conditions for ending the war, including demands for controlling parts of eastern Ukraine.

US President Donald Trump revives Russian President Vladimir Putin on the runway after they arrived at an Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, Alaska, on August 15, 2025. (Andrew Caballero-reynolds/AFP/Getty Images)

After meeting with the Russian leader, Trump He pointed out that Zelenskyy should take Putin’s deal to end the war because “Russia is very large” and Ukraine is not. However, Ssecretary of State Marco Rubio rejected allegations that Trump would press Zelenskyy to give up large areas of its sovereign lands to Russia.

“The president has said that with regard to the regions, these are things that Zelinski will have to decide,” Rubio told Maria Partotromo at Fox News.

“Everything that the president tries to do here is a narrowness of open issues,” Rubio said, adding that Trump focuses on ending the Kremlin war in Ukraine.

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“You cannot have a peace deal between two warring factions unless the two sides agree to give up something. The two sides agree that the other side gets something. Otherwise, if there is a side that gets everything they want, then this is not a peace deal. It is called surrender. I do not think this is a war that will end any time soon. On the basis of surrender,” Rubio said.

Zelinski said he hoped that the next meeting with European allies and Trump is “fruitful”, in contrast to this with the exchanging hot oval office during his visit in February.